waves surfers fighting against unseen pollution. starting january seventh. this is news live from berlin a car has plowed into pedestrians during rush hour. drove into a crowd outside the city's central train station injuring up to nineteen people including children police say they have arrested two men we'll get the very latest we'll go live to know but. also coming up polls have opened in catalonia for

today's crucial election seen as a gauge of support for independence from spain all the region seats up for grabs after madrid dissolved the separatist parliament and arrested its leaders. and u.s. president trump delivers on a key campaign promise congress pushes through a sweeping tax reform bill with the biggest tax cuts in decades. and the trial opens for the man charged with carrying out a bomb attack on. team boss german investigators say it had nothing to do with terrorism everything to do with money. i'm brian thomas a very warm welcome to the show we begin with some breaking news please. in

australia say a vehicle has been driven into a crowd of people in central melbourne witnesses say a white s.u.v. hit pedestrians at a crowded intersection on thursday afternoon that area was packed with people doing christmas shopping authorities say up to nineteen people are injured some thirteen are receiving treatment in hospital right now the driver of the car and a passenger in it have been arrested police are investigating whether this incident is terror related. for the very latest let's go live now to correspondent peter herrmann in melbourne dieter do you have any background for us about this attack what other details are out there right now. but not so many details coming up the problem is that the police did not give any unit further information so far it happened next at sixteen thirty zero four thirty pm local time and as you said that's most probably the busiest time of the day the car rental of the destinations

before crashing into a tram stop filling the streets ration station and that's one of the major intersections here in melbourne interesting is that after seconds only bystanders rushed to the car and pulled the driver and another person out of the vehicle. as i said it is a very busy a area and even though the police arrived on scene after only two minutes that's very very fast and only minutes later the first ambulances came in and took care of the of the people injured the area is still completely cordoned off no pedestrians no cause no trams in the area moving. and as you already said thirteen people off that lies and amongst these thirteen is one one preschooler with serious head injuries and the driver of the second person yeah and you know i want to ask you about that second person we know that there is

a second individual now in custody do we have any idea about the identity of the driver or that second individual not yet unfortunately the driver is has or has been taken in custody custody by the police immediately the second person that's what we heard this was trying to escape but somebody hold him back and the second person is in custody as well now to amman bring us up to date from melbourne was more from theater as the details come in thanks for now. we're turning now to spain polls have opened in catalonia for a hotly contested election seen as a gauge of support for independence now this comes two months after the region declared independence from spain following a referendum opposed by madrid spanish authorities responded to that with a crackdown arresting separatist leaders and calling the snap elections taking place today with great hopes today's vote will put an end to the political crisis.

you call him about his companion for independent catalonia the pianist and her friends think that madrid stands for spain of the past. and. the independence movement in catalonia really wants to change things for the better people in the rest of spain don't necessarily agree with that you are parliament for example approved a law giving people the right to receive gas and electricity even if they can't afford it but the central government then overturn the law if we don't have a common future with moderate elements. we are not going to do. but a group has been plastering makeshift posters like these all across catalonia but you didn't expect to get involved in this campaign until a little while ago independence how do you thin an option for oil initially i wanted to very against independence and the referendum it was after all

a united country would have had more means to improve in citizens' life but when i saw how the police were breaching voters something inside me broke to pieces i couldn't help but say that it was that. the referendum was a turning point for many people here but that doesn't mean that they are any closer to agree with each other quite the contrary the catalans are more divided than ever . yama vivus has always apace independence but it wasn't until after october's referendum that he took to the streets for the first time to express that sentiment along with hundreds of thousands of others he finally felt accepted by his home region. lot of. our country is based on stigma if we say something that is considered politically incorrect we are socially going to fight because of here in catalonia speaking out in favor of a united spain was for a long time. we didn't dare to be. but the referendum and what happened at the time

was so ridiculous that we lost our matter if we finally found the courage to speak our minds. jamo recently started a satirical you tube channel in one of his videos he proclaims a catalonian republic from his balcony he wants people to laugh about a topic he thinks is being taken too seriously he's also calling for a conciliation not of political or politicians have broken our society but we shouldn't forget the neighbor he leaned against the war in favor of independence to know is that our neighbor and not in our enemy that we need to learn to appreciate each other again put into even if we don't agree with each other. but yama knows reconciliation will take years he intends to keep on making his videos and hopes that one day they will make even independent supporters laugh ok polls are open now

let's go straight to barcelona and our correspondent barbara. barbara what's turnout looking like right now. the local polls and local media say that turnout might rise as high as ninety percent which would be sensational that would mean that pretty much everyone amongst the five point five million registers of registered voters here who can walk and hold a pen will turn up at the polling stations today a quarter of these people that's what polled say also are still supposed to be undecided on whether they're going to go pro independence or against independence and exactly which party they will give their vote to because they have a rather white spectrum they have pro independence on the left they have against independence or more to the left and more to the liberal middle of the road there is a wide choice and it is really difficult to make up one's mind if you have a certain outcome that you want for instance if you want to go against independence

then who do you vote for which group of parties could form a viable government difficult day for voters here ok now what about the identity politics that are driving this high voter turnout today. it's a recent phenomenon really because in years past there was always about twenty percent between ten and twenty percent support for an independent catalonia there was always a hard core of independent east us as they're called here but then during the since the last elections particularly since to two thousand fifteen and even some used before that as a group around college pushed him on the independent leader who is now in belgium has really pushed the issue and they have done everything to force this they have really turned the local t.v. channel into a propaganda tool they have really worked with the newspapers they have sort of

indoctrinated children in school it's been everywhere and they really pushed the issue to the forefront even though and that is the thing around seventy percent of people who live in the region are not originally born catalans they come from other regions in spain from europe or even from that in america northern africa so it's a really mixed bag here and how you can force these people into this catalonia in this catalan sort of identity it is a really is stunning political phenomenon barbara fazel for us with the latest from barcelona we'll have more from barbara throughout the day as the vote progresses thanks very much. now for some of the other stories making the news this hour the british prime minister threw some may as forced one of her key cabinet allies to resign after an investigation concluded he had breached the ministerial code damian green was found to have made misleading comments about pornography discovered on

his parliamentary computers nine years ago it made its making misleading statements but said he never viewed the porn. south korea says its soldiers fired warning shots at north korean border guards after they chased the defector a visual say twenty shots were fired when the guards approached demarcation line between the two countries they were pursuing a north korean soldier the second to defect to the south in about five weeks india's capital delhi has begun testing what it's calling an anti smog gun the machine shaped like a hairdryer and sprays atomized water into the air in the attempt to flush out pollution particles environmental laws are criticizing the strategies saying it fails to tackle the root causes of pollution it's to the us now and the most sweeping tax reform in a generation is now the law of the land president trump signed an historic historic overall overall rather of the u.s.

tax code after the house of representatives gave its final approval the bill includes permanent tax breaks for corporations and temporary tax cuts for individuals it's the first major legislative victory for the trumpet ministration. in his election campaign president trump promised to lower taxes and after eleven months on the job he's delivered on that promise. in typical trump fashion he praised the achievement in super lotto it's the largest i always say the most massive but it's the largest tax cut in the history of our country and the reform but tax cuts. really something special we are making america great again your republican congressional leaders were under intense pressure that is to pass the legislation before the end of the year. the bill slashes tax rates for businesses and the wealthiest americans part with more modest and only

temporary relief for the middle class not a single democrat voted for the plan they say it was aimed at seoul it helping the richest one percent. the true face. going for has been nevil to instead of focusing on the middle class which contains millions of veterans on the forgotten americans republican to build it to install a permanent plutocracy. republicans say the tax cuts will help boost the american economy. but many analysts are skeptical about the long term benefits. president trump says his tax overhaul is a christmas gift to the american people. but polls suggest that it's when most americans are unsure if they want to keep. well this isn't the first big tax cut in america the state of kansas has been experimenting with its own version and they learn some lessons from that brian in two thousand and twelve governor sam

brownback introduced sweeping tax cuts for individuals and some businesses as expected overall state tax revenue actually went up but that wasn't enough to counter economic headwinds and grow the economy it's a lesson that the federal government must love tax cuts on not a silver bullet to improving the fortunes of a nation or even a state. the midwestern state of kansas was hit hard during the financial crisis after years of sluggish growth governor sam brownback was hoping to kick start the economy with drastic tax cuts his administration reduced the income tax and then got rid of it. the state eliminated taxes for farmers the self employed as well as small and medium sized businesses gary mason the owner of an environmental consulting and services firm gladly accepted the massive tax cuts. probably got about twenty thousand dollars with equipment outside of your. state here this tax

credit or lower taxes for small businesses. quickly like this but the dream of an economic boom never materialized the watchdog job center is not as busy as it was a few years ago but that's not due to the tax reform. where there wasn't anything that drastic change the economy is recovering so we know that that's part of it is just the natural recovery from the recession instead of a strong recovery kansas saw an impressive growth and massive budget deficits as its tax base disappeared funding for this public school in kansas city dropped by fifteen percent much to the chagrin of principal david smith. the tax codes basically spend all the money. and they're out of money so what they're arguing is the schools don't need more money i think these things show you what we do and we will be able to use that money to do more for. kansas be

a blueprint for the entire country if donald trump's optimistic plans don't succeed the u.s. could see a spiraling deficit and stagnation instead of many new jobs. now it looks like clear skies ahead with brussels search to approve the partial takeover of. yet towns or grows so do concerns that it could become far too dumb to. live chances so opportunity in the demise of its one time rival was barely passed the faction carrier could take on new groups as well as the aircraft and employees to service them. it's originally proposed to take over that included two subsidiaries that plan sparked e.u. concerns over competition of tansen responded last week with a more modest proposal dropping the purchase of austrian flyer nicky together and instead of the original eighty one aircraft it wanted to buy it would now buy just

sixty a green light from brussels raises other questions first among them who will buy the airline nicky which remains insolvent there are already a number of interested buyers including the original owner former austrian racing car driver mickey lauder yet another decision for a turbulent european airline market. to our very own high flyer not advised in frankfurt for us and that it seems likely the e.u. competition commission will essentially be approving a monopoly when it comes to some routes i guess what i'm asking here is whether it's a necessary deal or a dereliction of duty for the regulator. well it's probably a mixed shelf it isn't necessarily deal because obviously we knew me need these these routes to be serviced because what we're having right now at least and some

destinations inside germany it's just not enough flights air in the air are just operated but on the other side as well according to reuters last time there's handed in some serious concessions in order to sort of cure the obstacles which they were obviously having so what is the rumor is that they have been there for going or giving up on starting and landing rights in the so there are and that might have curate some of the concerns the competition authorities had in the e.u. but still there are many routes where aloof towns are the which is supposed to go through will be the dominant force if not the monopolistic. kariya such as frank the live in frankfurt but also other so it will remain to be seen what they do pricing wise ok and tourists have also been affected so far since the collapse of the live there's been

a significant knock on effect for the tourism industry yeah berlin seems to be really adversely affected if you look at the tourist numbers in october and november they're down some six or seven percent year on year and that is according to the tourism agency because of ever lend because they're not enough law it's serviced into the capital of germany and that has to change and this hopefully will change with the new year when looked hands will be actually servicing all these missing flights once again and that's a bunch of updates. that disappointed pilots unions speaking to budget airline ryanair for the very first time in the company's history the reason for the discontent ireland's ryanair have refused to negotiate with the unions on pilots' pay the airline says it will answer a number of proposals inviting by noon today the unions have threatened to go on strike again if the deadline passes without a satisfactory reply. to

a major court case beginning here in germany brian school district that's right dale the trial is starting today for the man charged with carrying out a bomb attack on the brasier darkman team boss and april the suspect has been charged with attempted murder causing an explosion and serious bodily harm at first investigators thought that incident was terror related but now they believe the motivation for the attack was greed. fans had already started gathering in the stadium for dortmund's champions league match against monaco but dortmund didn't make it there that night just as they left the hotel shortly after seven pm the team bus was rocked by several blasts glass shattered dortmund defend amount part truck and a police officer with injured. dacha who was taken to hospital for surgery on

a fractured wrist. that buses reinforced windows prevented further injuries. police discovered three homemade explosive devices packed with shots of metal placed in bush's by the roadside a shaken dortmund team lost against monaco when they played their reshaped match the next evening. the authorities first line of inquiry a terror plot letters left at the scene claimed the attack was retaliation for german military operations against so-called islamic state in iraq and syria. ten days later police arrested a twenty eight year old german russian national identified only as surrogate w. the motive of the attack not terrorism but greed the suspect had taken out options on thousands of piracy have bought one shares betting that an attack would send prices plummeting and net him millions. johnston crane from our sports

desk has been looking into this for us good morning jonathan this was an attack that shocked all of germany a massive shock someone would actually target football players or some degree of this is an attack on football the football community as a whole. so much passion in germany and also an element of relief that this attack was not in the end a police officer were injured but miraculous that no one was actually killed the suspect is being charged with the attempted murder of twenty eight people but what he did do was unite football fans united football fans from rival teams to resort dortmund fans offering monaco supporters accommodation for the night somewhere to eat so i think it really did put football in perspective there was some very thorough police work right after the attack of course what led investigators in the end to the suspect because there is initially investigates this was an islamist

attack they found several letters at the scene after the attack one claiming responsibility by islamic state also that says from purporting to be from far right and far left groups the police quickly realized that they were a bit suspicious raising questions about their authenticity and then they were led to the hotel opposite to where the attack took place because stuff that would raise the alarm about someone acting very suspiciously off to the everyone else is running around in a panic as you would expect this person sat down in the restaurant calmly a to steak and also ordered a math and then they were alerted to some. cheese with stock purchases this put option which essentially means that stock can be sold at a specific price of a set and dates and they were then able to trace that back through the ip address to the hotel and eventually place closed in the suspect ten days i'd like to follow up on that you know the suspect in custody was taking advantage of a financial rarity apparently and in german football what can you tell us about the

. so being listed on the stock exchange is actually coleman in other major european leagues but dortmund are the only german club to be listed on the stock exchange and they did this back in two thousand and one when they were facing financial ruin essentially they really needed to raise money quickly so an influx of cash came in they were able to buy a load of players improve their fortunes but of course stock prices. the results of all that so the suspect really took advantage of this prosecutor said that just one euro a fall of one euro in the drop in stock price would have netted him hof a million euros ok briefly if you could what about the attack and its effect on security at dortmund games and generally for a german football we've seen attacks on football stadiums in the past don't forget in november twenty fifth game there was the explosions outside the stop the fronts before the fronts and during the france and germany match but attacks on team bus is quite rest there i think what it did do was highlight how unprepared football

clubs were for this and how unprepared they want to deal with something like this happening and that is obviously something that has really been looked at now in the aftermath of this attack jobs and train for us thanks so very much for that job as well dortmund were in action on the field wednesday in a blockbuster german cup clash against but mostly the leaders byron munich the last sixteen encounter came with both sides in good form but of course it could only be one winner. dortmund beat by a long route to winning the cup last season ended when two in a row and a new coach. but winning at the audience so dana is tough for any tame. and made a fast start in the twelve minute nicholas soon this headed to turn to the jerome though it's a pilot in the rebound it was his first ever could go and get by and it deserved really. but dortmund almost levelled on thirty five minutes when the bull run through to under ya malenko but cleared off the line. soon after though by and

doubled their lead when a well move was expertly finished through must move the the fine fans knew they'd seen something special at a rough time in front of goal in the last two seasons but you wouldn't know it's goldman pulled one back midway through the second half for young milenko to set up a grandstand finish but it wasn't to be for the holders a first defeat well might see buy and go through to the quarterfinals were. and the doormen were not the only sides in the german cup action on wednesday braman came out on top in a high scoring clash with freiburg all leverkusen defeated watching log back that thanks for a goal from leon bally last season's runners up frankfurt needed extra time to get past second tier hide behind schalke zero are among those to win on tuesday the draw is next month with the quarter finals taking place in early february.

enter the conflict zone confronting the powerful. oa guest is. the deputy chairman for the party after taking a beating at the polls in september many social democrats said the party needed to reinvent itself so with the s.p.d.

go into a position to become on the lawn mower because jr bob knows. this next. go along is a figure out of jewish myth an artificial. and first it played the role of protector but over the centuries its character changed it inspired artists as well as scientists whose fundamental questions about human nature. as. the legend of man. in forty five minutes on. where i come from we had to fight for a free press i was born and raised in a military dictatorship with just one t.v. shadow and a few newspapers with official information as a journalist i have worked on the streets of many qantas and they have problems are

all the same for doing such an inequality a lack of the freedom of the press and corruption who can afford to stay silent when it comes to the fans of the humans on the scene or microphones who have decided to put their trust in us. menenius jenny paris and i work a day dolly. this week on think zone is at the headquarters of the german social democrats in berlin our guest is. a deputy chairman for the party after taking a beating at the polls in september many social democrats said the party needed to reinvent itself so will the s.p.d. go.